Lesson from the Roman Empire

"We receive hundreds of emails each week, we study on computers (likely with earphones in our ears), some of us have fully computerized notes, we navigate with our GPS, communicate with Skype, and do just about everything on smartphones. What do you think of all this technology in a vet student’s life? Making things easier or more complicated? Do you prefer to communicate and study electronically or would you be much happier unplugged?"

Oneal Peters
Colorado State University, '13

Tap tap tap. This is the noise of vet school. Facebook flashes by on the screen of a classmate sitting in front of me, no doubt updating her status from sitting in Equine Medicine and Surgery to sitting in Bovine Herd Medicine, I guess it’s pretty big news. To the left of her someone is taking actual notes during class on their laptop, adding to the already text happy power point slides that the professor is reading to us. I shouldn’t criticize; I am watching all this while I peer over my own computer screen. This is the new look of vet school.

About sixty percent of my classmates take electronic notes. The other forty percent spend money each month purchasing their paper notes, print outs of the power point presentations that will be given by the course professor. As long as you have a working computer, taking electronic notes saves you about $100 per semester since electronic notes are free.

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The Tragic Tale of Fifi the Dog

David Kim
UC Davis

The Tragic Tale of Fifi the Dog
by Pickles da Goat

Heroes old and new have arisen
Throughout the sands of time
Achilles, Macbeth, Gizmoduck
To 2014’s Jon Levine (god he’s so FOINE~)

But all these do pale when compared
To the terrifying trifecta who dared
Wage war with the wily wretched worms
Many lives taken, over a billion deaths confirmed

So if you will so permit me to share    
My tale and melodious ode
Hear of Boyce, Conrad, and Houston
Slayers of the hated nematode!

Fifi the Pom had a problem
A coprophagic addicted to poop
Risk of disease ran high yet she still rolled the die
Until a problem arose in her crap chute

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Students at Oregon State learn how to rescue horses from ravines, and much more!

Editors note: SAVMA's Public Health and Community Outreach Committee offers a grant every spring to a veterinary school that is hosting a disaster preparedness activity.  The latest winner of the grant was Oregon State University. Read below to hear more about their event, and if you are interested in funding for a disaster preparedness activity at your own school, please contact the Public Health committee at savma.phcoc@gmail.com

Oregon Veterinary Students participating in a disaster preparedness course spponsored by SAVMA's Public Health and Community Outreach Committee

By: Ashley Galen
Oregon State University, Class of 2013

Last summer I participated in an externship at a local equine practice where I met Dr. Shannon Findley, a recent graduate of UC Davis with a lot of enthusiasm for equine emergency response.  During veterinary school she took courses in large animal rescue and participated in their Veterinary Emergency Response Team (VERT).  Her drive to spread awareness to clients and fellow aid workers, veterinarians and firemen alike, showed me how important it is to be prepared for emergency situations.  

This drove me to set up an SC-AAEP workshop at Oregon State on equine emergency response, focusing on what can be done in an average practice to be prepared for a disaster of any magnitude.

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More than a mentor

Erica Burkland
Cornell University, '14

I met my mentor, Layla, in 2008 while I was working as a weekend receptionist at a large 24-hour referral hospital. I had been working there for just over a year while pursuing a master’s degree in social work when Layla was hired as an emergency vet. Although I don’t quite remember exactly when or how we started to become friends, I do remember that our first conversation went something like this:

L: So, what’s your deal?Erica and her mentor, Layla
Me: Excuse me?
L: What are you doing here? You’re too good at your job to be true.

When I then told Layla that, actually, I had recently decided to forgo completing my MSW in favor of pursuing vet school, she frankly said, “That’s what I was hoping.” And the rest, as they say, is history.

Even from the early stages of our friendship, Layla went out of her way to help prepare me for a career as a veterinarian. Though I was “just a receptionist” while we worked together, she always made a point of teaching me whenever and whatever she could – paging me to radiology to view interesting radiographs, giving me my first suture lesson, even conducting lessons on acid/base disturbances and the different types of rodenticides on the rare days when the emergency service was quiet enough to allow us fifteen minutes to scarf down lunch together.

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EPDC Grant at work at UC Davis

Editor's note: The SAVMA Education and Professional Development offers a grant every spring to a veterinary school looking to fund an extracurricular activity, such as a wet lab or a lecture.  Last year's winner was UC Davis. Please read on to hear their summary of the event, and if you would like to know more information about funding an event at your own school, email the committee at savma.epdc@gmail.com

UC Davis Students at the Veterinary Pathology Club lab sponsored by SAVMA's EPDC Committee

On May 11th, 2011 the Veteinary Pathology Club at UC Davis held its first cow necropsy lab. The lab started with a small talk about safety during necropsies, common findings during necropsies and incidental lesions found during necropsies. The latter portion of the lab involved students necropsying cows with guidance from residents and a facultly member. Each cadaver was assigned an organ system to be focused on. For UC Davis Students at the cow necropsy labexample, one cow had the reproductive tract removed and the students were debriefed on normal structure, possible abnormalities seen in these organs, and possible findings you are looking for in these organs. The Veterinary Pathology Club will be using the EPDC grant from SAVMA to cover food for the pre-laboratory discussion and lab related expenses for the cow necropsy lab in this May 2012. Thank you SAVMA for your support!